Detention with Severus
by MahoneSona
Summary: Severus is hosting detention for a young Ravenclaw...and he is certainly not having a very good day.


_First Harry Potter fanfic. "Detention with Severus." Not sure if it worked out, but whatever. I tried writing a Snape one-shot with an OC, but it's not romantic or anything. Or maybe it is, I don't know. Depends on your perspective I suppose. Could also be a trigger for extreme angst and depression. Sorry in advance. And I don't own Harry Potter and all that jazz._

It was a beautiful day for detention. The sun was giving glowing warmth over Hogwarts Castle, causing its inhabitants to exit its walls and enjoy the lush spring air. Not a cloud in the sky, and Severus Snape was conducting his tenth detention of the week. Recently he found it hilarious to use students as his personal slaves (unbeknownst to Dumbledore, who would put a stop to it if he somehow knew). Yesterday Snape had that ghastly Potter boy again, but Snape found it funny to see how much agony Potter faced sorting out old misdemeanor records of Hogwarts students. With that cheerful memory in place, Snape was excited for the next "detentionee" to show up so that he could terrorize another one of the children that he had grown to despise.

The door to his office squeaked open slowly, and a tiny voice spoke from the crack in the doorway.

"Professor Snape?"

Snape casually looked up from his desk littered with Potions essays to be graded.

"Come in," he said.

A young girl (perhaps a fourth-year) walked into his office. At first Snape didn't recognize her, but then he noticed her red hair in contrast to the black décor of the room. No, she wasn't a Weasley; if she were, she'd be in Gryffindor for sure. This girl was in Ravenclaw, as her robe color suggested. She was unnaturally short for her age, and shy demeanor was plainly visible behind the stack of books she was holding as a shield against human contact. Snape wondered why she was even in his office at all; she didn't seem like the type to get a detention. Too quiet definitely. Not loud and rebellious like Potter and his friends…

She was pale white as she said to Snape, "I'm here for my detention," shrinking away from him as if he were some sort of contagious disease.

It clicked. Snape remembered what she did. She attacked a Slytherin during his class. Gave the kid cuts all over his face. Somehow she used _Sectumsempra _on the kid without saying the spell aloud. Pretty advanced for a fourth year. But Snape didn't allow himself to be easily impressed. The signs of _his _spell were clear. How she found out about it was unknown to him, but his anger couldn't stop him from giving her detentions for the rest of the year. Snape had never been so angry with a student before, not even as angry as he had been at Potter on numerous occasions…

Snape looked her over a couple of times before speaking. "Your detention today will be dusting all of the bottles in my cabinets. Shouldn't take you more than four hours to do."

Snape threw a ragged cloth at the girl, who jumped a mile in fright as it landed on her books. She stared at it for a moment before setting down her books on a nearby table and gently picking up the cloth, fingers slightly trembling. After a moment Snape said, "What are you waiting for? Get moving already," in his passive tone of voice. She broke her gaze with the cloth, and as if out a trance she began to dust bottles of potions ingredients.

Snape went back to grading Potions essays for a while, finding great glee in giving Potter a big fat _D _on his two-foot parchment written about healing potions. The girl remained silent throughout her time dusting, and Snape noticed with curiosity that the girl had a very particular way of sorting the bottles. She'd line up a row of bottles that she had just taken out of the cabinet by size, height and color, and then individually she'd dust each bottle, starting from smallest to biggest. After each bottle was released of its dust, she'd place them all back in the cabinet in the order she took them out, lining them up perfectly. If one wasn't absolutely lined up precisely with the others, she'd take all the bottles out and start over. Snape found this to be very peculiar, as it seemed that she wanted to stay longer by stalling her time dusting. Why anyone want to spend _more _time in detention? But then he noticed how frustrated she'd look after each mistake she made, and he realized that she wasn't doing it on purpose. She _had_ to place each bottle specifically in its rightful place, or else she'd have to start all over again. She wasn't accepting mediocrity. She only accepted perfection, even in such a simple task as putting away potion bottles. Whether that was a trait to be admired was what Snape was trying to figure out. Mostly he saw it as a strange habit or obsession, and he felt a sense of uneasiness wash over him as he observed the young Ravenclaw's actions. No normal person does that. Neatness is a virtue, yes, but _this _was taking it too far.

Snape looked perplexed at the girl until she looked up from what she was doing and jumped with a start. As if embarrassed, she hastily started cramming bottles into the cabinet in no particular order, trying to look casual as she did. But to Snape it looked like it absolutely killed her to stop her habitual practice of sorting bottles. Snape sat there not knowing what to do; after all, it was her _punishment._ She definitely looked punished…in fact, she looked positively dreadful. Maybe enough was enough for one day…Yet, Snape couldn't control his curiosity any longer. He said rather loudly. "Why are you doing that?"

She stopped putting bottles into the cabinet and looked down, ashamed. "Because I have to," she said, more to the cabinet than to Snape.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Her hands slowly curled into fists. "Because if I don't, I can't live. I have to do this. I can't live without it."

Snape wanted to laugh, but he'd forgotten how. When was the last time he had laughed? No matter, he opted for a half-smile instead. "You make no sense," he said.

She continued to look at the cabinet, examining each bottle. "Well, of course I don't make sense," she replied. "I'm crazy, a freak. That's what they called me, his friends. And after what he called me…"

Snape's smile left his face as she finally turned to meet Snape's eyes. Her eyes were full of tears, and with a heavy heart Snape saw that they were an intense shade of green. Trying to block his emotions, Snape spoke to the girl in order to put his mind away from what he didn't want to feel. "You could have killed him. And whatever spell you used was definitely Dark magic, magic that you shouldn't know-"

"So don't you see then?" she said, her voice getting louder. "I shouldn't know that spell, but I do. I am in the wrong. There's not a day that goes by when I don't regret what I did to him, whether he deserved it or not. I hurt him, my best friend…and if I could apologize a million times I would. But he won't forgive me…" By now she had started outright sobbing. "I'm such a monster to him, he won't even look at me! So that's why I'm doing this, Professor, because I'm making myself perfect for him…so that he doesn't see the monster anymore…and that maybe if I continue to this, he'll come back to me!"

She glanced up at the bottles in anger and tore them loose from the cabinet, tears streaming down her face. Snape, slightly horrified (but still keeping his passive face) strode over to her and grasped her wrists so as to stop the silly girl from removing all the bottles placed in the cabinet. She gave a cry of pain and slammed against the table behind her. Confused, Snape backed away from her, looking at his hands in bewilderment. Was that…_him?_

She noticed him looking at his hands and bitterly laughed. "It's not you," she said. She rubbed her wrists in frustration, and with a feeling of dread Snape already figured it out before she had time to say it.

"You used _Sectumsempra _on yourself."

She nodded sadly, and she rolled up her sleeves as proof. Nasty red wounds in the process of healing covered her skin (the marks of a dark curse). Snape was surprised that she was even still alive, but then he deduced that the spell was never really designed for damage on the user himself…

The girl confirmed his though. "The spell weakened as soon as it hit my skin, and it didn't happen as it did with him…I wondered why my wand was being to kind to me…"

She carefully rolled down her sleeves, making sure to cover up her self-inflicted marks. Snape was trying to control his mind from giving in, but he had a sad feeling that today wasn't going to be a good day for him to engage in activities where his mind would be vulnerable to attack. The Dark Lord would have to wait another day for his report on Dumbledore (who told Severus to lie to Voldemort about Hogwarts' defenses…yes, not a good day at all…).

The tension in the room suffocated Snape, and it was with great relief that he released the girl from her time in detention. Picking up her books (and this time he noticed that she picked them up with extreme care and held them in a way so that her wrists would have less pressure on them), she started to leave and was almost out the door before Snape suddenly called out without thinking:

"That boy. What did he call you?"

She turned around, and with Snape already knowing the answer she replied with her sad, green eyes sparkling with tears.

"He called me a Mudblood."

She left without another word, and Severus Snape hastily walked back to his desk, barely even having enough time to sit down before his mind overflowed with his memories, memories of her red hair and soft green eyes that shined brighter when she laughed. The young Gryffindor girl whom he had always loved…the girl he once called Mudblood…the girl who never forgave him for that awful mistake…

Snape placed his head in his hands and the pain grew larger in his chest…the pain he wanted to forget…

He saw both the Gryffindor and the Ravenclaw's faces in his mind's eye, and he wondered how they could be so similar, yet not so at the same time…would she, the Gryffindor, hurt herself over the loss of losing her best friend? Would she have attacked Snape if she had the knowledge to do so? The very thought caused the pain in his chest to stab him in the heart harshly, and he wanted to scream in pain but no sound would come out.

Snape rubbed his eyes, struggling to make the visions go away, but they stayed imprinted in his thoughts. He placed his hands on his desk, trembling over dried ink and parchment paper. And before he knew it he was thinking the word that he had shut out of his mind to avoid the detection of his true intentions from the Dark Lord, the word that gave him pain and sorrow that he never wanted to experience again, but yet he still uttered the word, the name of his beloved:

"_Lily."_

Bringing his hands to his face, he felt the hot rush of tears falling down his pale cheeks, and Severus, in his weary sadness, collapsed onto his desk with his head resting on Harry Potter's Potions essay.


End file.
